11. Cali
CALI
I'm extra, super-duper careful walking out of my bedroom when morning comes around. If I grab another crotch, I think I'll go ahead and just end it. Fool me twice, shame on me, you know?
But no crotch waits for me, thank my lucky stars. The hallway is as empty as it ought to be. I heave a great sigh of relief.
But I only make it to the top of the stairs before I stop. My whole body still feels wrong. Wound too tight. Like a Slinky somebody bent out of shape and never let snap back.
Last night was the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me. And I've had a lot of ridiculous things happen lately. A scale in Phoenix. A blonde hair in my brush. A man dying on my landing.
But this. Grabbing my ex-lover-slash-current-house-guest-slash-mob-boss by the crotch in the dark because I thought his manhood was a blunt weapon? Getting pinned to the wall? His thumb on my mouth?
Then retreating to my room, humiliating myself with a feverish hand inside my pajama shorts, and then refusing to finish just to spite a man who wasn't even in the room?!
I shake my head at myself.
Who am I? I used to be a woman who color-coded her spreadsheets and packed the kids' lunches the night before. Now, I'm this. Some feral thing in the dark, mad at a branch, outraged at a pair of reading glasses.
I grip the banister and go downstairs anyway. Because that's the other thing I do now.
I.
Keep.
Going.
Slutty reading glasses be damned.
But halfway down the stairs, I stop again. This time, it's because I hear voices in the kitchen.
It's Ronan and Navi. They're whispering back and forth, but the acoustics are just right to carry their voices up to me. I stop, one hand on the newel post, and make a spur-of-the-moment decision to do a little freelance eavesdropping.
"—payroll's short again," Navi is saying. "Third time this month."
"Cover it out of the Red Hook building."
"I already borrowed against Red Hook, Ro. There's nothing left to borrow. I'm telling you, the well's running dry."
A pause. The clink of a spoon against a mug.
"Another four men took off this week, too," Navi adds. "Just in case you're keeping count."
"Do you think I simply stopped?" drawls Ronan.
"Fuck if I know, dude. All I know is that the guns paid for everything, and without that cash flow to feed families, you're basically handing the Bratva to Lev on a silver platter."
"Let Lev talk," Ronan says dismissively. "It's not until he starts acting that I'll decide to give a shit."
Navi scoffs. "'Start' acting? Ronan, he's been acting. Did you forget that he kidnapped our former money man and sent assassins here to pull the same stunt on your girl and her kids? You say you're keeping count, but I kinda think you're ignoring the real costs of your decisions here, cousin."
I don't hear Ronan answer.
I don't need him to. Because I'm not stupid, and the picture Navi is painting really isn't that complicated.
Ronan is turning off the key spigot of his business, because of me.
Why would he do that? I've made it clear that we can't be together. And he's made it clear that, even if he disagrees, he won't push. So what purpose does this serve? Who wins here, besides Lev?
I need answers. And I'm not gonna get them by crouching on this staircase like a nosy little goblin.
So I stride into the kitchen.
Navi's mid-sip. He sees me first and blanches.
"Get out," I tell Navi. Not rudely. But not a request, either.
Navi looks at Ronan, who gives him a small nod. For once choosing not to leave with a parting quip, Navi sets his mug down and goes, brushing past me with a meaningful look and a pat on the shoulder. The vault door thuds shut behind him.
I fold my arms and look at Ronan. "How much are you losing?"
Ronan sets down his mug. He looks at me for a long moment, but says nothing.
"Well? Is this a staring contest, or a guessing game? I play those with my kids plenty, so I'm good on both fronts."
He chuckles, although I fail to see what's so funny about the situation. "Enough."
"That's not a number."
"No. It isn't. You're the math prodigy; you'd know best."
I plant both hands on the island. "Don't patronize me. I want a real answer. Sit right there and tell me exactly what you're doing and why."
"I can't explain it," he says.
"Oh, Jesus. Of course you can't. Why would you be able to explain it? Why would you bother filling me in on anything, ever, of any kind? God forbid I know something! God forbid—"
"Calista, breathe. I didn't finish."
I pause for breath mid-rant. "… Oh?"
"I can't explain it," he says again, "so let me show you instead."
That stops me dead in my tracks. "Show me what?"
"Get dressed and you'll see."
"Where are we going?"
"Brooklyn."
"That's not an answer, either." But gosh darn it, he's piqued my curiosity. "Is it illegal, whatever you're showing me?"
"No."
"Is anyone going to die?"
"Not today."
"That's so reassuring."
He smiles. "This won't take long." He pauses at the doorway. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. But you asked for the truth, and this is the only way I know how to give it to you where you'll actually believe it."
"One day, you'll learn how to say something that doesn't sound like it belongs in a spy movie," I sigh.
Ronan laughs. "Maybe. But today is not that day."
I don't know exactly why I'm bracing from head to toe, but you'll catch me dead before you catch me easing up until I know where we're going.
I haven't forgotten about just what kind of guy Ronan is.
Even though he says and does nothing but nice things to me and my children, there's always the possibility that one day the other shoe will drop.
Turns out that's exactly what happens.
But not in any way I ever expected.
Ronan pulls to the curb in front of a big, old brick building. Three stories. Tall windows. A little iron fence around a courtyard on the side.
There's a sign over the door.
THE ANNA HOUSE.
"What is this?" I ask.
"Come inside," he says. "You'll see."
I don't move right away. My hand stays on the door handle. Every instinct I have is telling me to be careful, to keep my back to a wall and my eye on the exits.
But Ronan is stepping out of the car, coming around to my side, and opening my door for me.
Inside, it's cool. The air conditioning hums somewhere in the walls. It's a nice building. Clean. There are drawings taped up on the walls, crooked crayon masterpieces, suns with too many rays and dogs bigger than the houses next to them. A rack of small shoes by the door, all different sizes.
A woman comes down the hall toward us. She's maybe sixty, gray hair in a bun, glasses on a chain. When she sees Ronan, her whole face lights up.
"Mr. Akov!" she says. "We weren't expecting you today."
"Louisa." Ronan takes her hand in both of his. "I'm sorry to drop in unannounced. This is a friend of mine. Calista Meadows. I wanted to show her the place."
"Oh, how wonderful." Louisa turns to me, beaming. "Any friend of Mr. Akov's is welcome here. Come in, come in. Let me show you what this man has done for us."
What this man has done for us.
I follow her. I don't know what else to do. Ronan hangs back a step, letting her lead. She doesn't look like a killer. But I won't assume anything about anyone just yet. Not even sweet old Louisa here.
"Eleven years I've been running this place," Louisa says as we walk. "And in that time, Mr. Akov has never once said no. Not once. You know what we had before he came along?"
"No," I say.
"Nothing," she laughs, "that's what! Two ancient window units that broke every July. Kids sleeping and sweating their booties off in the heat. Now, look." She gestures up at a vent. "Central air, every floor. Heat in the winter that actually works. It's nothing short of a miracle."
She takes us through a laundry room. Big new machines, gleaming, humming through a cycle. Baskets of small clothes folded on a table.
"Six of these, too," Louisa says. "We used to do the wash at a laundromat down the block. Carted it in bags. Now, we do it right here. You have any idea how much laundry forty children make?"
"A lot," I say.
"You must be a mother." She cackles again, and I can't help but join her this time. Little by little, that gut-clenched bracing impulse is easing off.
She shows us a reading nook. It's a cute little alcove built into the wall, lined with soft cushions and low shelves packed with books.
There's a lamp shaped like a mushroom. A kid, maybe seven or eight, just shy of Hayden's age, is curled up in the corner with a picture book, sounding out the words under her breath.
She's so happily engrossed that she doesn't even look up when we pass.
"His idea," Louisa says, nodding at the nook. "He said every child should have one place that's just for them. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere soft."
I look at Ronan.
He's not looking at me. He's looking at the girl with the book, not smiling, but somehow expressing happiness on some invisible frequency I can feel but not see.
We come to a big window at the end of the hall.
It looks out over the courtyard, the one behind the iron fence.
More kids are playing out there, running around on the grass, the swing set, a sandbox.
One of the orphanage workers, a young man, is kicking a ball back and forth with a knot of shrieking boys.
"That's new, too," Louisa says, tapping the glass. "The whole yard. Used to be a parking lot. Cracked concrete. It's much better this way, don't you agree?"
I look out. There's a little girl on the swings.
She's got two dark braids and she's pumping her legs as hard as they'll go, higher and higher, head tipped back, laughing.
Nobody's pushing her. She's doing it herself.
And she's not looking around to see if anyone's watching, not measuring herself against anything, not making herself small.
She's just a kid on a swing, going as high as she can, because she can.
I've seen a lot of things in the last month. I don't cry at most of them anymore.
This one might do me in, though.
"Louisa," Ronan says gently, "would you give us a moment?"
"Of course." She pats my arm. "Stay as long as you like, dear. The place is yours. Ha! Get it?"
Still laughing under her breath, she goes. Her footsteps fade down the hall. And then it's just me and Ronan in front of the window.
I don't say anything for a while. Neither does he.
"You built this," I finally infer.
"I pay for it," he corrects. "Louisa built it. She does the real work. I just sign the checks."
"She thinks you're a lawyer."
"I am a lawyer."
"You know what I mean." I turn to look at him. "She doesn't know."
"The whole story? No. Seemed unnecessary."
"Your name's not on it, though. I thought slapping Akov on everything was, like, your whole thing."
"Not this place."
"Then whose name—?" I stop.
Because I already know. I knew the second I read the sign, if I'm honest, but I didn't let myself put it together until right now.
Anna House.
"Your mother," I say.
Ronan looks out the window. "Anna," he says. "Yes."
In my mind's eye, I hear the sound of breaking glass. The sobs of a woman on her knees. Shrinking. Folding herself up and hiding herself away.
"I built it so that no child would ever have to see what I saw," Ronan explains in a rumble. "That's all. Nothing grander than that."
I look back out at the courtyard and the swinging girl. "The money," I say slowly. "The dirty money. It goes here?"
"Some of it. This place and a few others."
And there it is. The answer I came for.
I asked him, back in the kitchen, why he's letting his whole empire bleed out. Why would he turn off the thing that pays for everything? I thought there'd be some cold strategy behind it, some three-moves-ahead thing I couldn't see.
But it's not that.
"The point was making something clean out of something dirty," Ronan replies to my unvoiced question.
"For a long time, I told myself that made it all worth it.
All the bad shit I did, at least it had a purpose.
I took the ugliest thing I came from and I turned it into that.
" He nods at the girl on the swing. "Into a place where a child gets to be a child. That was the trade I made with myself."
"And then? What happens to her if it all goes up in smoke?"
"There's enough for her. There's enough for you. And if there's not enough for me left over after all that… Well, that's okay." He shrugs. "I picked you. I'll always pick you. Even when you don't want me to. Especially then."
Goddamn him.
It's not fair that he can do this.
I had him pinned in a certain arrangement. I had all the receipts that proved what he was. Criminal. Liar. Thief.
Now, here's a data point that won't fit.
It doesn't erase anything. He's not suddenly some saint. Every piece of evidence I uncovered still convicts him, every last one.
But this is a receipt, too.
What am I going to do with it?
I get my answer on the drive home.
We're maybe ten minutes out when a car pulls up close behind us on the highway. It's a plain gray sedan, nothing special about it. But it flashes red and blue lights from behind the grille, and suddenly, it doesn't look so innocent anymore.
"Ronan," I say.
"I see it."
He pulls to the curb, calm as anything. He puts the car in park and rests both hands on the wheel where they can be seen. He's done this before, I can tell. He knows the routine.
"Stay in the car," he says. "Let me talk."
But I look in the side mirror and I recognize the person getting out of the gray sedan.
Dark hair, pulled back tight. Gray blazer.
"That's not a cop," I say. "Or, well. Maybe she is. But she's more than that, too."
Ronan's jaw tightens. "Who?"
"Agent Mercer."
I watch her walk up alongside the car, unhurried, one hand tucked in her blazer pocket. She stops at my window and taps the glass with one knuckle.
Ronan doesn't say anything. But his hands come off the wheel, slow.
And he reaches for something below his seat.